What's New:
Piku
Yesterday was Pi Day. In belated celebration, I present Piku.Piku are similar to haiku, except the form is 3, 1, 4 and each poem must have an image or word or action that somehow evokes roundness. See examples here.
Catapult
Paul Sonnenberg part 1
This is part one of a two-part interview with singer, guitarist, songwriter Paul Sonnenberg. The interview was conducted over several weeks in late January, early February 2010.If you don't know who Paul is, an introduction is in order. Here he is singing "Sigh Heart, Don't Break," which he wrote.
Read the rest of the interview.
when you're a pirate
Here, courtesy of the Piratical Linguistic Institute, is a video I made.
The painting is from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates.
The song is mine.
Triggered
Dvorah Governale, action movie hero.
See my daughter-in-law take out - and I don't mean date - my sons,
Michael and Daniel.
Best moment? When she knocks the magazine out of Dan's weapon.
"This was a lot of fun to film," Dvorah said. "But the truth is, Mike
and Dan could both kill me with a single punch."
That's a bit of an over-statement, but not much. Both boys have won
international tournaments in full-contact karate. Not polite
tournaments with gloves, but serious ones with bare hands and feet.
Here is an six-second video of Michael knocking out an opponent with a
sacrifice hook kick.
Writing a Novel
My son, Joseph, has started a writers' guild. Participants,
mostly family members, are going to write 120-page novels during 2010
at a rate of 10 pages a month.
Since most of the participants are first-time novelists, I offer here
five suggestions they may find helpful.
Read more
Midnight Showing
I don't know what I was thinking.
Well, actually, I do.
I was thinking that I'm busy most every evening and that I was in the
mood to go to the movies and that there was a midnight showing of "New
Moon" and why not go.
My wife was smart enough to admit she didn't have the stamina for a
middle of the night movie and then be up at 4:30 to teach a 6 a.m.
class.
I didn't have a 6 a.m. class, and so, with her blessing, bought myself
a ticket.
I got to the theater around 11 prepared to stand in line, but the
building's door was open and the audience, already seated. I walked in
and scanned the room, which was nearly full of teenage girls.
I found a place on the aisle of the main section, about a third of the
way from the front, opened the book I'd brought - ABAB: Always Bring A
Book - and settled in, oblivious to the buzz of adolescent chatter. I
had just finished the first three pages of "I Dreamed of Africa" by
Kuki Gallmann, when a smiling young woman stopped in the aisle and
spoke to me.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I responded.
"You look very lonely sitting there all by yourself."
"Uh . . . no. I'm fine, actually," I stammered.
I could not imagine - nor did I want to - what she might say next.
There was an empty seat next to me. If she sat down and tried to hold
my hand, I wouldn't just get up and move, I would get up and leave.
Trouble of whatever sort this was, I didn't need.
Read more
Planting Trees
One woman. Seven weeks. 80,000 trees.When a friend of mine, Nicola Gladwell, 23, wrote to me that this is how many tree she'd planted during May and June of this year, I wrote back for clarification.
"Did you personally plant 80,000 trees? Or was that a group total?"
She replied:
"That was all me!
Read more
Zi6 and Movie Maker Solution
PC users who own Kodak Zi6 digital camcorders have flooded the video forums asking how to edit their footage in Windows Movie Maker.
The Zi6 saves in mov format, which Movie Maker can't read.
After scouring the forums, I tried about a dozen suggested solutions, this re-encorder and that one, until discovering a simple solution of my own -- a solution that had already been discovered by a guy named PapaJohn at papajohn.org.
Read more and see a YouTube video of a drive from my house to Route 26 in Norway, Maine.
The Emerald Ash Borer
The song is dedicated to the Cerceris fumipennis wasp.
Thanks to my daughter, Sofrona, for singing with me. And to Pearl Dustin for loaning me a 1954 Fender guitar, on which I wrote and performed this song.
Lyrics are here plus a free mp3 of the song.Book Sale
Here is a poem I wrote recently, after buying "Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems" at a book sale. Click the play button to hear me reading Book Sale at the seventh annual Poets on the Porch, July 11, 2009, in Norway, Maine.
Words are here.
My business card
Here is a picture of my business card:
Perhaps someday I'll be famous enough to have a business card like Steve Martin's:
Monique Macasaet part 1
This is the first of a three-part interview with Monique Macasaet (Mah-kah-SAH-et).
Last year, Monique and her two sisters, Maylee and Mikka, won the Bushman Music Works world ukulele video contest.
After watching (and rewatching) her videos on YouTube, I was curious about Monique's instruments, her playing technique, and her singing. To my great joy, she granted me an interview and was kind and gracious and patient with my many questions. Thank you, Monique.
Tell me about your ukes and your guitar.
I own a Zebrawood Ibanez acoustic/electric guitar, a tenor Bushman uke, a tenor ovation uke, and a concert size uke that I forgot the brand =/.
I really love my guitar except for the fact that when it is not plugged in, it's a bit too quiet.
For my ukes, generally I've come to realize that I'm a concert player rather than a tenor. I feel like my tenors don't have a full enough sound as opposed to my concert uke.
Read more
Monique Macasaet part 2
This is the second of a three-part interview with Monique Macasaet.Here, she talks about her sisters, about winning the Bushman world video contest, and about the Ukulele Luau.
Read more
Monique Macasaet part 3
In this, the third of a three-part interview with Monique Macasaet, she tells about the heart surgery that almost cost her her voice, about her Filipino heritage, and about her musical ambitions.Read more
Spelling Bee
I could not spell beautiful, though gallantly I tried . . .
Hear the song
Quilt
The minutes and hours
and days and weeks
of its creation
were never marked on a calendar.
The quiet joy
that fashioned each block
from threads of sunlight
and mown hay
and dooryard chickens
and box socials
and early morning trips to the barn
and a thousand Sunday dinners
has passed beyond memory.
But love
from that long-forgotten parlor
still lives in every stitch.
Empty Chairs
The first time I heard Don McLean sing Empty Chairs, it killed me. When it was over, I had to play the recording again and again.
I'm not the only person to have such a reaction.
There was Lori Lieberman, for instance.
Read more
Redemption
Nicola Gladwell gave me a bobby pin.
During a long bus trip this April, I got out the handwritten draft of a short story and my AlphaSmart Dana word processor.
I balanced the Dana on my lap, then realized there was no comfortable--or even uncomfortable--way to prop up the sheets so I could type them. On the back of the seat in front of me was a tightly screwed-on strip of plastic that held the chair cover in place. I tried forcing the edge of a page under that, but had no luck.
Bother.
It was then that Nicola, seated across the aisle from me, came to the rescue. She removed a bobby pin from her hair and handed it over. I was at a loss what to do with it.
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
She took the flat prong and worked it under the strip of plastic, creating a clipboard. I slid a few pages into the bobby pin and they held.
Brilliant.
Read more
Think of me as Frodo
The first time I fell in love, it was with a woman 16 years older than I was.
Such a difference can be awkward. My situation was compounded by the fact that I was five and she was 21.
Read more
Cerceris fumipennis
In late December, it is not unusual to hear a song that begins, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . ."
That song is particularly nostalgic in the U.S., because there are no more American chestnut trees. Chestnut blight killed them all. Every last one.
Now ash trees are in danger from a beetle called the emerald ash borer, which so far has killed 40 million trees, mostly in the Midwest.
Maine may have a secret weapon that will help protect our ash trees.
Read more